Businesses, such as banks, government facilities, and commercial retail stores often use surveillance cameras to observe properties for safety and security purposes. Conventional surveillance cameras capture video images of an area, such as a section of a room, an exterior entranceway, or inside a vault, and transfer the images electronically to a recording device or monitor. In some circumstances, the recording device or monitor is located remotely from the surveyed location.
If the images are transferred to a remotely located monitor, security personnel observe the activities within the area, for example, without compromising the comfort and privacy of people located in the area. In some circumstances, a secondary monitor is positioned in the monitored area such that a person being monitored is aware of the contents of the video being captured.
The field of vision of a surveillance camera is typically configured to cover only static designated areas. Pan tilt zoom (PTZ) cameras offer security personnel additional control over the direction, angle, and zoom of the cameras, allowing some maneuvering of the field of vision within the monitored area. By controlling a PTZ camera, security personnel have the ability to follow the movements of activities by panning along with the motions of a person, group, or other moving object, zooming in upon an area of concern, or by simply panning back and forth or tilting up and down to take in a wider field of vision than made available by the security camera in a static configuration.